With familiar strides of sneaky stealth Graystripe padded longingly towards the babbling stream up ahead. As its rippled highlights of sharp silver marred his vision he tried his best to push aside the blanket of raw guilt that seemed to muffle every breath he took. Not even Graystripe himself could deny how blatantly wrong this was, or ignore how every hair on his pelt urged him in a prickly wave of foreboding despair and seemingly futuristic notion that these outright disgraceful actions should be stopped immediately. Just the thought of being caught was enough to make the warrior want to wretch; he'd be, without a doubt, the breathing target of every fox-hearted remark and stingingly barbed jibe produced by the four forest Clans. But then again, Graystripe didn't expect anyone to understand, not even Fireheart, his best friend and most loyal Clan companion. These feelings were so mind-numbingly complex, coated in such attractively comforting poison, that not even the Warrior Code, he imagined, could twine a tail of even the slightest comprehensive understanding around their true meaning.
Graystripe felt his heart flutter like a butterfly as the brewing force behind this emotional storm, a beauteous feline of silvery smooth grace, waded into his mesmerized vision. Silverstream was waiting for him.
"Graystripe!" the RiverClan warrior let loose a hypnotizingly wild purr powered by her feelings of deeply rooted love and unparalleled dedication. She waded towards Graystripe, the shine in her watery blue eyes enough to evaporate all traces of gnarly remorse like an isolated puddle within a desert. She gave him a gentle nuzzle, sending tiny beads of icy clear water from the river's plentiful dazzling liquid strings to cling adhesively to his stone hued fur. "I was worried you wouldn't come."
Graystripe brushed his barbed pink tongue between Silverstream's forehead. "You know I would never do that, Silverstream. Not even if StarClan held me captive would I miss our visits." Both cats knew how preciously dangerous their visits truly were. It was like treading on a sheet of hair thin ice; one misstep, and everything would be helplessly lost in one sweeping gulp of paralyzing iciness. They were gambling mercilessly with the likes of StarClan now, sneaking around their ancestral noses as if they were innocent kits trying to sneak away from the nursery undetected.
Silverstream blinked her eyes in trusting gratitude before she inched closer to Graystripe, leaning against his slowly darkening pelt. "And you know I would do anything also."
The scents of both ThunderClan and RiverClan shimmied around his damp nose, tangoing in the wind's musty harmony as reeds swayed and nudged like chimes. Graystripe leaned closer to Silverstream, the warmth of her slippery wet pelt soothing his shrieking nerves; he still wasn't exactly used to frolicking merrily in the constantly morphing water.
"It's almost time, isn't it?" Graystripe mewed somewhat tentatively. The rushing feeling of ecstatic excitement was snuffed out like a flickering flame as thoughts boiling in dizzying complexity swarmed his mind, like cats flocking at a gathering.
Silverstream nodded her head, and Graystripe could feel her fur tingling in apprehensive bliss. "Only a few days now Mudfur reckons." She rested her spiky wet paw on top of his, sending a shuddering pang of cool comfort up his limbs. "Are you sure we're making the right choice, Graystripe?"
Silverstream's glittering pools of aqua blue were unwaveringly gazing at Graystripe, further warming his increasingly soaking fur. "Of course we are. The kits will need you more then they'll need me." Despite the absolute certainty in his words, Graystripe couldn't help but feel the sting of their true meaning, like a battle wound that just wouldn't heal properly.
"But they need a father!" Silverstream gushed uncontrollably, the simmering emotions in her stressed mew unmistakable. "I can go ask Crookedstar, as my father he would surely understand. He'd have to allow you to come visit them-"
"Silverstream, don't be naïve." Graystripe pushed his nose into her flank in a vain attempt to comfort her. "The last thing I want is to cause trouble for you. The kits will live in RiverClan." An unrelentless stab of grief clawed down Graystripe's pelt like an infected bug bite. Just the mere thought of having his own kits in another Clan made his throat constrict in desert dry misery, but he subconsciously knew it was the best choice.
Silverstream let out a placid sigh, its mild force sending the water into a rippling sheet of rings echoing one another in crescendo form. Graystripe felt her whiskers twitch self-consciously and her body heat up in an effort to mime her thoughts. "Sometimes . . . sometimes I just wish you were from RiverClan."
"You know my heart lies with ThunderClan."
"I know!" her mew was like water racing over the lip of a cliff, being forced over edge by the heedless paws of gravity. With a swift look of apology for her outburst Silverstream began to aggressively lick her chest fur, despite it already being misted in river water spray. She placed her head delicately along Graystripe's neck; he could feel her heart thumping like a rabbit, pounding across the open moorland in a futile attempt to escape its unescapable fate.
"Even as we speak I am treading through waters of disloyalty. If my Clan ever found out –" Graystripe choked back the words hastily, not wanting to even skim the idea of having his deepest secret spilled dry so carelessly by any one of his clanmates. "But my loyalties will forever and always lie with you, Silverstream. That I swear, by the name of StarClan."
The two warriors' tails entwined intuitively together like snakes coiling in the hot sun. Graystripe knew that what he was doing was going against every single thing he had ever learnt. Ever since he could breath his dream was to become a legendary warrior in ThunderClan, to lead his Clan into epic battles, tooth and claw, and to provide carefully negotiated guidance during times of need. But right now, sitting beside the flawlessly slender frame of the she-cat he so devotedly loved, every aspect of the Warrior Code seemed to leech away from him into a world of black misty abyss. StarClan knew the true antidote for a traitorous love like theirs. StarClan knew.